Secondary Security Screening Selection or
Secondary Security Screening Selectee, known by its acronym SSSS, is an airport
security measure in the United
States which selects passengers for additional inspection. This
may also be known as Selectee, Automatic Selectee or the Selectee
list.

How does the selectee get selected

Given that neither the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) nor the airline
publish the criteria used, it may never be possible to precisely
identify the actual criteria in use. The system works by selecting
passengers who meet certain criteria at the time their boarding
pass is issued. Some criteria that may be used to select
individuals are:

Since neither the TSA nor the airline run a
background
check at the time boarding passes are issued, immigrationstatus and criminal
records are not taken into consideration during SSSS.
Furthermore, personal information such as a passenger's addresses,
employment history, and medical
records are not taken into account during SSSS and may not even
be readily available to government officials to modify the process
and increase its validity.

Procedure when selected

Passengers that have been selected
for this secondary screening will have the letters SSSS or *S* (all
capitals) printed on their boarding passes. In the case of
Southwest Airlines, secondary screening selectees will have a
"checkerboard" pattern printed on their boarding passes. SSSS
passengers will go through a more intensive screening process which
may include puffer
explosive detectors. Their carry-on luggage may be also be
inspected by hand. In the case of film or other items that cannot
be X-rayed,
the agent may perform a test for possible explosive materials. The
screener may also use a hand held metal
detector to search the passenger for metal objects.

Randomness and Credibility

Since the process acts on the
accumulation of certain criteria rather than mathematical probability, it is expected
that subjects may be selected more than once or more often than
others. This has caused the public to believe the process is not
random but instead discriminatory. In
reality, it is a selective process in which candidates who fall
under a pre-determined category are chosen. Nonetheless, the
process may rely, intermittently, in randomness, when subjects do
not fall under any category and this becomes the mathematical
variable.

The efficiency of SSSS is highly questionable,
since at least with British
Airways the marking happens as mentioned at check-in. Thus a
potential miscreant is warned and has the opportunity to leave the
public area of the airport or abandon an attempt to smuggle
something on board, while other passengers will be continue to be
screened. This supports the impression that SSSS is not an actual
security measure but another move to harass passengers and keep the
public in a state of constant alert for political reasons.